"I was in Milan, and you would see the same girls at castings. There was one girl--she was like, 'I can't get any work. I'm so sick of this, I'm ready to quit. I love your hair color. What do you color your hair with?' and I was like, 'Oh, it's red. Here's my formula.' It was Karen Elson. A couple of weeks later, she had bright-red hair." Christina leans into the tape recorder and says, "Sorry, Karen, but you did ask about my hair color. Then I saw her on the cover of Italian Vogue, and the rest is history!" She laughs. "Karen is amazing. I'm such an admirer of hers."

"I read that [Harper's Bazaar story] and you know, she did tell me years ago....We did a shoot together and I remember her beautiful red hair, and I had the worst sort of strawberry blonde mousy hair, and she was like, 'Here, you should dye your hair red, it's going to work for you.' [....] But then when I came to New York and I was about to work with Meisel and do the cover of Italian Vogue, he was going to choose red or black; and I willed the red. Thanks to Christina Hendricks, I willed it. So yeah, she encouraged the red hair."